[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday Poem
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 13:53:57 -0800
see that man over there
lear
with the slight twitch
his wits fading
wanting escape
a bug on a slab
under bright lights
enduring an opening
even at his age art is not gone
it's still here in
not so much what he's cobbled
as what we and
the cognoscenti and the demi-monde
collectively bring to this retrospective goggling
how much like Astaire
he once was
we stare
compare
his guts on a plate still mostly please us
so it seems there's an odd or even chance
this show will succeed
boost his now near-worthless stock
but we purpose-dressed denizens of fashion and jeans
move on
though still professing enduring love
saying yes
we privately think not now
recall how
by chance and striving
this man closed upon the peak
and was chosen to summit
the press has told us what five star rooms
what kind of cake
which private reserve
which sex he held most dear
how close in chuck up he came once to check out
we have read of guilt on every counterpane
so uneasy rests his crown
but not because he knows we know all this
his ego is still strong
his public demeanor yet light and breezy
no, he knows that in the wings
young birds have perfected his famous moves
and practicing like mariners with dummies
now threaten to arrest the market's wedding guests
they throw down marks and splashes
appropriate appropriately
care not a whit for irony
knit, stall, install
so now too they may somehow
by accident or by design
arrive, surpass, surplant
arise new talent
exhausting though tonight's crowd is
it finally goes
as he reaches for a permitted sip of wine
in response to neither shout nor summons
there comes a nurse with needle
patience in a mantle
who artlessly knowing nothing of who he is
with one swift jab
has him quickly feeling
a good deal worse
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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